A survivor's guide to teenage parenting involving rabbit feet, four leaf clovers and going to Church on Sunday.

Friday, 3 September 2010

The sleepover 1

I may have been born of the wrong age, the wrong parents, or perhaps I was on the super nerdy side of the "milk-bottle-top" glass ceiling , back in the day when a milkman could do the rounds of jokes about being a candidate for being called Dad, aswell as an actual milkround. I think I know the muddy side of the fence and I hope its mud. So back in the day sleepover was not yet in the Oxford British ....

But today, kids sleepover and teenagers sleepover.

One is an innocent charge around the house at loudspeaker turned to "11"on the screaming knob, until tiredness morphs them into sleeping beauties.

Teenagers on the otherhand are on a mission to be adults, or what they think adults can do, and possibly this means to the suspicious mind undertaking illicit activities. I know, I have read about it in parenting magazines and saw it in documentaries. I have been forewarned by the older parents that teenagers are not to be trusted. As an adult and caring parent, I must be alert to the danger. I am doing if for their benefit and they will thank me eventually.

Spying is legal in your own home and I am protecting their innocence. Oh yes.

I sniff the air. I hear the noises. I am doorside to the danger of corrupted youth. I am ready to launch against the forces of the dark side. I have heard about the illicit use of drugs and my ears do not inhale. And if there is cold turkeying to be done after the use of illicit baccy, it will be done as part of a high carb diet with buttered bread, as I am at the ready to pratice prevention is better than cure.

Sadly my kindly offer of turkey sandwiches is as unwelcome as my entrance. Apparently I failed to knock, but if I had knocked and showed trust, I would have failed to have caught them ..... listening to music, crap music, but music. Ah ha, is that vodk-water you're drinking. Yes a tasty bit of H20 - learn it for chemistry, my son and friend it turns into steam when heated, "would like a cup of tea and turn the music down". "Think of the rest of the family". I am thinking about you.

Damn in my day and age, at least I would be half cut and sleepovers were called parties where home was a three o'clock walk away.

I believe I may need to engage the repressed memory theory of past dirty deeds not done without photographic evidence to prove it. And repressed it will stay until they are adults.